Community hub model could prevent schools from shutting down

Cape Breton Post

Published: May 10, 2013 at midnight

Updated: Oct 02, 2017 at 11:20 a.m.

SYDNEY — As school enrolments continue to decline, communities desperate to keep their small schools open are embracing what’s being called a community hub model, which would see alternative uses for parts of school buildings in an effort to keep them from being shut down.

Breton Education Centre in New Waterford.

While almost all of Nova Scotia’s school boards are in decline, the Cape Breton-Victoria and Strait Regional school boards have lost students in even greater numbers than in other regions. That has led to excess square footage at schools operated by both boards.

Pathway to Rural Regeneration, a document prepared by the Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative, was presented earlier this year to the Nova Scotia Commission on the New Economy being led by Ray Ivany. It stated that in 2012-2013, three school boards in Nova Scotia put 14 community schools through the review process. Over the past five years, 45 schools have gone through the review process.

“Rural regeneration can — and should — begin in Nova Scotia’s villages and small towns, and there is enormous potential to be unlocked in the regions outside of Halifax and beyond the central corridor within a 90-minute drive of the provincial capital,” the report states. “Fully 45 per cent of Nova Scotia’s citizenry live in communities of fewer than 5,000 people... . Rebuilding the faltering rural economy should start rather than end with the schools, providing children and families with a more secure future.”

As communities fight possible school closures, proponents of maintaining small schools often note their importance to the communities where they are located, and how the loss of a school can start the slow death of a community as it’s a disincentive for people to locate there.

Randy Delorey of the Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative recently appeared before the Strait Regional School Board. Board member Lian Sampson had introduced a motion to rescind the scheduled closure of West Richmond Education Centre next month and instead wanted to work toward the school continuing to stay open under the community hub model. She failed to convince the required two-thirds majority of board members to vote in favour of the motion, and the closure will go ahead.

“Obviously, we’ve seen a lot of challenges for community schools, the writing has been on the wall the last couple of years,” Delorey said. “We initially developed a notion of putting schools at the centre, and that’s what we start with, with this model. We said, you know what, community schools are important, you can see that in the communities and the parents who fight so hard, tooth and nail, to save these schools.”

In addition to communities losing the opportunity to make use of school buildings if they are shut down, Delorey said they believe that having students educated within their own communities is an important part of the education that is being delivered. He added that at the same time boards are considering shuttering community schools, government agencies like the Department of Rural and Economic Development is working on efforts to revitalize and sustain rural economies.

“The solution is collaboration and reaching out and thinking of these schools, not just as education facilities and costs for school boards in education. It’s the opportunity to reach out and bring in these governmental partners, other agencies and other community groups to make schools feasible in a win-win situation for all of them,” Delorey said.

The possibilities are limited only by imaginations and the willingness to work together, he added.

Education Minister Ramona Jennex has asked but not required for boards to put on hold school closures that were decided in 2012-2013 and to not proceed with any other school reviews under the process currently in place is scrutinized. She said changes made to the process a few years ago did not go far enough and it is overly antagonistic, pitting communities wanting to save their schools against school boards.

Jennex has also said that boards shouldn’t use the legislated requirement to balance their books as a reason when deciding whether a school should close.

Granting access to schools after hours is only one step toward developing a community hub, the Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative says. It could also involve preventative health-care programs, recreation, poverty reduction, and cultural expression and celebration.

Community hubs involve seeking out social functions, community groups, services, organizations and programs that would be compatible with operating out of a school setting, that that can make use of some of the excess square footage and even provide some rental income.

The Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative report states that increasingly grassroots community groups are rejecting an agenda to close schools and instead are embracing the community hub concept. It questions where, without small schools, will the children and families come from to regenerate declining rural economies.

“Without the community schools within them, communities are given basically a death sentence, to wither up and die and that’s a challenge we’re seeing across the province in our rural communities,” Delorey said.

The Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative advocates that renovating small schools is more cost-effective than building new large facilities.

The Cape Breton-Victoria School Board recently released a report that provided a background to an upcoming consultation process that will examine the possible impact that 32 different scenarios could have on the delivery of programs and services within its jurisdiction.

The school board at one time had more than 100 schools but that is now down to 51, with 54 schools closing over the past 16 years. Seven new public-private partnership schools have been built, six board-owned schools were constructed and 10 renovations also took place.

The province is pursuing the SchoolsPlus model. That strategy responds to Commissioner Merlin Nunn’s recommendation to improve co-ordination and collaboration in the delivery of programs and services for children, youth, and families. Through SchoolsPlus, the intention is that schools become a convenient place for government and other services to be delivered to families. It’s also intended to make it easier for professionals to collaborate in assisting students and families.

The services provided at each SchoolsPlus site are to address the unique needs of a community, with each having its own advisory committee with representation from various government departments.